Macroeconomic Effect of Tax Changes: Evidence from the New Tax Policy Reform Database

This presentation will describe a new, comprehensive database of tax policy measures for 23 advanced and emerging market economies over the last four decades, drawing upon 900 OECD Economic Surveys and 37,000 tax-related news from the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation using text-mining techniques. The innovation of this dataset lies in its granularity: changes in the rates and bases  for six different tax types, announcement and implementation dates, whether the measures represent major changes, are part of a broader tax package and phased in over several years, or motivated by fiscal consolidations are documented. An application will examine the macroeconomic effects of tax changes during fiscal consolidations, distinguishing between tax rate and tax base changes. Our results suggest that tax base broadening during fiscal consolidations leads to smaller output and employment declines compared to rate hikes.